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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26434798">Voyage into Darkness: Love One Another or Die</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/drekadair/pseuds/drekadair'>drekadair</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Star Trek: Voyage into Darkness [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Andromeda (TV), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:22:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,995</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26434798</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/drekadair/pseuds/drekadair</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Aboard the Starship Enterprise, catastrophic computer malfunctions threaten the ship, while tensions between Kirk and Khan threaten the crew. When the Enterprise seeks repairs in a nearby system, local politics plunge the crew into unexpected danger and puts to the test the fragile trust Kirk and Khan have forged.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Star Trek: Voyage into Darkness [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/556270</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Voyage into Darkness: Love One Another or Die</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This series is a mashup between the Star Trek reboot, the original series, and a little-known but awesome series by Gene Roddenberry called Andromeda. It will make more sense if you read the first fic first, but you could probably figure things out as you go.</p><p>Usually I don't post stories until I've finished them, but this has been sitting half-completed on my computer for so long I thought posting the first chapter would motivate me to get it done. Please be patient with slow updates and also please offer me lots of encouragement in the form of reviews :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> <span class="long-line">Defenceless under the night</span> </em><br/>
<em> <span class="long-line">Our world in stupor lies;</span> </em><br/>
<em> <span class="long-line">Yet, dotted everywhere,</span> </em><br/>
<em> <span class="long-line">Ironic points of light</span> </em><br/>
<em> <span class="long-line">Flash out wherever the Just</span> </em><br/>
<em> <span class="long-line">Exchange their messages:</span> </em><br/>
<em> <span class="long-line">May I, composed like them</span> </em><br/>
<em> <span class="long-line">Of Eros and of dust,</span> </em><br/>
<em> <span class="long-line">Beleaguered by the same</span> </em><br/>
<em> <span class="long-line">Negation and despair,</span> </em><br/>
<em> <span class="long-line">Show an affirming flame.</span> </em>
</p><p>- "September 1, 1939," W.H. Auden</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Adjust the search parameters to compensate for the novel variables and try running a new scan on—”</p><p>“Lieutenant Ghuleed, check the polarity of the TC matrix—”</p><p>The hum of voices filled the bridge, rapid and only a little strained. Kirk leaned back in the captain’s chair and tried to look relaxed while pretending to read the contents of padd. The reality was that he wasn’t relaxed, and he’d read the same sentence three times without understanding a word of it.</p><p><em>Sometimes one of the hardest parts of command is knowing when not to command</em>, Pike had told him once. <em>If you can’t trust your crew, all your other problems are irrelevant.</em></p><p>There were at least two people on the Enterprise crew Kirk didn’t trust, but somehow that didn’t make the rest of his problems seem inconsequential. In fact, it just seemed to make them worse, especially considering that one of those two crewmembers was currently on the Bridge, trying to fix the Enterprise’s current crisis.</p><p>
  <em>“Commander Singh, do you read any change in the energy through-flow on the lower conduits—”</em>
</p><p>Scotty’s voice drifted from the Engineering panel where Khan Noonien Singh—murderer, genetically enhanced superman, and Kirk’s newest bridge officer—watched the readouts with all the calmness Kirk didn’t feel.</p><p>“No change, Commander Scott,” Khan replied.</p><p>“<em>Blast</em>,” Scotty said with feeling. <em>“If the increased energy isn’t running through those conduits, where in blazes is it going?”</em></p><p>The current  crisis—and Kirk was beginning to feel like there was a new one every day—was a power fluctuation in the forward shield array. It was a complicated job, since the shields were one of the ship’s most power-intensive systems, and most of the Bridge crew was involved in the repairs one way or another. Spock, working on the hypothesis that the ship’s computer—which had been acting erratically for the past week—might be at fault, was performing an intensive computer diagnostic. This left Uhura to recalibrate the internal sensors—normally Spock’s job—in the hope that she could pinpoint the source of fault. And from the Engineering station Khan worked with Scotty, down in the Engine Room, to fine-tune the power flow and hunt for damaged relays and conduits.</p><p>“Can you confirm the presence of the energy surge?” Khan asked. His voice, touched with an exotic blend of Indian and English accents, showed no sign of stress.</p><p><em>“I’m not hallucinating, if that’s what you mean,</em>” said Scotty, who’s voice did sound stressed. “<em>We definitely show a spike in power to the shield array</em>.”</p><p>In the week since the Enterprise had been stranded in the Delta Quadrant by the mysterious Caretaker, Kirk and his hodge-podge crew—Enterprise, Vengeance, augment, and alien—had struggled to keep the badly damaged ship flying and out of danger. So far, Khan had carried out his duties without giving Kirk cause for complaint, but he feared the uneasy truce between them was too brittle to last.</p><p>“There’s no sign of any fluctuation here—”</p><p>“<em>That just means automatic compensation subroutines won’t react to it until it’s too late and the whole array’s blown to bits.</em>”</p><p>Kirk gave up trying to reading the report on the padd in his hand. When Scotty talked about the ship blowing up, Kirk made a point of listening. From the sideways glances of the rest of the crew, they all felt the same.</p><p>But Khan, it seemed, did not. “That’s unlikely,” he said dismissively. “The discrepancy is more likely to be an oversight of the internal sensors. Lieutenant Uhura is currently recalibrating them.”</p><p>At the sound of her name, Uhura lifted her head from her own work. “We’re still checking that segment of the internal sensor array,” she said, “but it doesn’t seem to be working properly. It might be reporting an non-existent energy surge, or it might fail to report a real one. We can’t tell until the recalibration is complete.”</p><p>“<em>We should lock down the power constrictors on the entire shield array,</em>” Scotty said. “<em>Just to be safe.</em>”</p><p>“We will not,” Khan said flatly. “That would disable our shields and leave us helpless in the face of an attack.”</p><p>“<em>Unless there’s something you’re not telling me, there’s no one around for light-years. And an overload will disable our shields a lot more permanently than a lock-down!</em>”</p><p>“Locking down the constrictors is an overreaction,” Khan said, no longer sounding so calm. He didn’t seem angry, only annoyed, as though he couldn’t understand why Scotty was still arguing with him. “Even if there is a power surge, manual compensation will be sufficient.”</p><p>“<em>That’s too big a risk. We’re short on parts as it is. If we blow out the shield array—</em>”</p><p>“It’s no risk at all,” Khan said. “I’ll monitor the process myself.”</p><p>Heads turned as people stared at Khan, then hastily turned their attention back to their own tasks. Even the captain knew not to argue with the ship’s engineer.</p><p>“Mr. Scott,” Kirk said, abandoning all pretense of reading the padd, “lock down the constrictors.”</p><p>Khan spun away from his station to fix Kirk with a suddenly furious glare. “No,” he snapped.</p><p>A sudden silence fell over the bridge. Sh’athylnik, Admiral Marcus’ former first officer and Kirk’s new tactical officer, stood, her hand on her phaser and her eyes on Khan. Even Spock lifted his eyes from his work to watch the unfolding scene.</p><p>“You heard me, Mr. Scott,” Kirk said. “Lock them down.”</p><p>“<em>Aye, captain.</em>”</p><p>Khan’s lip curled. “You’re a fool, Kirk. A frightened fool—”</p><p>“That’s enough, Commander Singh,” Kirk said over him. “You are relieved of your post. I’ll see you in my ready room.”</p><p>Their eyes locked. Kirk half-hoped Khan would come at him. A good fight would relieve his stress nicely. The moment stretched, and then Khan stood slowly. He swept the the room with a fierce look, taking in the watching stares of the bridge crew. Silently, he stalked off the bridge.</p><p>The watching stares shifted to Kirk, who resisted the urge to wipe his sweaty palms on his uniform trousers. “Carry on,” he said, and as one they all turned back to their stations. Sh’athylnik sat down, but not before giving Kirk a significant look. She’d made her views on Khan perfectly clear.</p><p>Kirk waited a few minutes, pretending to go back to the report. In his mind, he followed Khan off the bridge and told Khan what he could do with his arrogance and insubordination. He imagined throwing a punch, smashing his fist against Khan’s too-perfect face… but he’d already tried that on Qo’noS, and it hadn’t even left a bruise. Besides, striking a superior officer was one thing; hitting a subordinate was something else. </p><p>Kirk stood and dropped the unread padd onto the empty seat. “Mr. Spock,” he said. “You have the bridge.”</p><p>Khan was on his feet when Kirk walked in, dark skin flushed and shoulders stiff. He wasn’t pacing; Kirk thought he would have been pacing, if it was him.</p><p>“I refuse to be—” Khan began, but Kirk cut him off.</p><p>“I don’t care,” he said flatly. A small voice in the back of his head warned him they were both too angry to have this conversation right now, but he didn’t want to listen. “Your behavior out there was unacceptable, Khan. I won’t tolerate insubordination on my own bridge!”</p><p>“What is unacceptable is your complete incompetence, Kirk. You should—”</p><p>“<em>Captain</em>,” Kirk snapped. “That’s <em>Captain</em> Kirk to you. I welcome suggestions from my crew when they are offered in an appropriate manner, but in the end I am the one who gives orders on this ship—and I expect them to be followed.”</p><p>“Perhaps you shouldn’t,” Khan said, his voice dangerously soft. “You have no idea what you’re doing, sitting in that chair. If it weren’t for a twist of fate, you’d still be a junior officer on a no-name ship carrying out some routine mission. I was born to command, and yet you dare to question my orders?”</p><p>Kirk struggled not to show how close to home Khan’s barb had hit. He had become captain of the <em>Enterprise</em> before he had even graduated from the Academy. In the midst of the chaos surrounding the <em>Narada’s</em> violent appearance, he thought he had earned it. He was the top student at the Academy, he had outsmarted the <em>Kobayashi Maru</em> simulation, and he had defeated Nero and saved Earth. Skipping the ranks of ensign through commander only seemed natural.</p><p>Then he had screwed up the situation on Nibiru, lost the <em>Enterprise</em>, allowed Marcus to turn him into a cats-paw, and stranded his ship a lifetime away from home in the Delta Quadrant. Kirk was beginning to realize that being clever and smart and bold might be enough. And although they were the same age, Khan had conquered nearly a quarter of Earth’s population by the time he was twenty-two—the same age at which Kirk had entered the Academy. While Kirk had been stealing skimmers and getting into drunken fights, Khan had been leading military campaigns and running an empire.</p><p>And none of that mattered because the Enterprise was Kirk’s to command, and he would see her destroyed before he let Khan sit in the captain’s chair.</p><p>“You can think whatever the hell you want of my command,” Kirk said, “but the only reason you give orders on this ship is because I let you. You agreed to those terms.”</p><p>“Yes,” Khan said coldly. “I did.”</p><p>They faced each other across the barrier of Kirk’s desk, a bitter silence stretching between them. Kirk wondered if this was the moment he had been expecting ever since he invited Khan to join his crew: the moment Khan tried to kill him and take over the Enterprise. He was both dismayed and unsurprised at how quickly the fragile trust they had forged on Ocampa had decayed back into hatred and suspicion.</p><p>“Were you this insubordinate to Marcus?” Kirk asked.</p><p>Khan’s eyes narrowed and Kirk thought, <em>Stupid, stupid</em>. It was foolish to bait Khan; he didn’t know why he kept doing it. No, he knew why, he just couldn’t stop himself.</p><p>“No,” Khan said. “It was in my best interest to convince I was tame, safe, obedient—things I was not. But then, Marcus held my crew hostage—which you do not.” He tilted his head, a dangerous gesture. “You agreed to those terms.”</p><p>“We’ve been over this,” Kirk said. “I can’t spare the resources needed to bring your people out of stasis until repairs are further along.”</p><p>“Repairs my people could help further.”</p><p>They were teetering on the edge of a dangerous precipice. The last time they discussed the disposition of Khan’s sleeping crew of superhumans, they had come dangerously close to open argument. If they revisited the subject now, Kirk knew one of them would go for the other’s throat. As much as he wanted a fight with Khan, Kirk knew he had to be the one to step back from that edge.</p><p> “I’m not going over this with you again,” Kirk said, as calmly as he  could manage. “In the future, if you have a problem with the way I’m running this ship, you can bring it up in private. Otherwise, you keep your mouth shut on the bridge. Is that understood, <em>Commander?</em>”</p><p>“Yes, Captain,” Khan spat.</p><p>“Good. You’re confined to quarters until the start of your next shift. Dismissed.”</p><p>Khan did nothing so childish as storm out of the room, but he left with a stiff grace that conveyed his anger perfectly. After the door slid shut behind him, Kirk rubbed his hand across his face and said to the empty room, “That could have gone better.”</p>
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